Syria Shells City As Crackdown Escalates
Beirut -- Tanks have shelled residential areas of the industrial city of Homs in central Syria, a sharp escalation in the level of force used to contain a seven-week popular protest movement.
According to activists in touch with people on the ground, the Bab Amr and Bab Sbah areas of Homs, which has seen some of the largest protests against the Ba'athist regime of Bashar al-Assad, have been attacked since Tuesday night, killing nine and leaving a huge number of wounded.
Ambulances have been denied access to the areas, activists said. Five hundred people are believed to have been arrested since the start of the military's operation in Homs.
"There's a house-to-house raiding operation happening in Bab Amr at the moment," said Wissam Tarif, director of the human rights group Insan.
The operation comes as Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, expressed disappointment that a UN humanitarian assessment team had not been given access to the southern city of Deraa, the flashpoint of the protest movement, which has been under military siege since April 25. The European Union announced it would be looking at further sanctions to put "maximum political pressure on the regime".
At least three cities and nine suburbs of Damascus are now said to be under military occupation, and further military operations were reported on Wednesday in the areas around Deraa.
The state news agency claimed authorities had "seized a huge amount of weapons and varied ammunition" from Wednesday's operation against "terrorists".
The Syrian government claims the violence is driven by infiltrators and armed gangs, but Mr Assad's closest regional ally, Reçep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, has said that 1,000 civilians have been killed during the uprising.